Kate Cammack, CfT Co-Director
As we enter Week 5 of the semester, our feet are on the ground and it is (hopefully) feeling like we’re finding a workable groove and things are moving along swiftly.
While we hear a lot about the importance of collecting mid-semester feedback, mid-semester does not necessarily mean the halfway point of the semester. In fact, I’d argue that mid-semester could be just about anything between Weeks 3-12 (!)
Why not take this week, with a month under our belt and a month before spring break, to check in with your students while their engagement, energy, and bandwidth are still high?
It helps you:
- Understand how your students are engaging in certain parts of your course
- Gain a sense of the individual differences in students’ experience
- Convey the importance of dialogue & the relational aspects of learning
It helps your students:
- Practice metacognition (reflecting on their own learning)
- Feel heard and respected, which builds trust
- Discern where/why certain changes can (and can’t) be made in your course
I typically use an anonymous version of start-stop-continue — just make a quick, anonymous Google Form (here’s the one I will use this week), generate a QR code to the form, and have your students snap the code and complete the questions in the last 5min of your next class. FWIW response rates are typically much better if you have them do this in class, rather than asking them to do it on their own time.
Curious for quick, in-the-moment feedback? Immediately after an activity, hand out index cards and ask them to write a quick minute paper on what they learned in that activity or how that activity connected to another aspect of the course.
Other, more specific aspects of your course that you might like to check in on:
Class dynamics. Do you and/or your students co-create guidelines set earlier in the semester (e.g., discussion norms, class community agreement)? It might be a good time to have students consider where they’re doing well and what opportunities for improvement that they might set for themselves.
Group work. If students are starting small-group work, you might consider setting aside a bit of time to help your students think explicitly and concretely about their small-group dynamics.
Exams. Have students taken any exams yet? If so, you might ask them to reflect about how they prepared (e.g., exam wrapper) and/or what they might do differently next time (see this simple example from a chemistry course).
Feedback. Are your students engaging with your feedback in the ways that you’d like them to? You might consider taking a moment to build their feedback literacy.
Reading. You might ask your students to complete these four questions about the reading, prior to coming to class. This can provide some helpful insight into how they’re engaging with the reading.
AI policy. Before your next assignment is due, consider sending a gentle nudge to your students about your course AI policy and why it is important to their learning. As students might be navigating many different policies/approaches, it’s helpful to remind them of your own.
And finally…
Be assured that, if an aspect of your course isn’t working as you’d hoped, you can adjust it. Have a conversation with your students, explain what you’d like to try and why you think it’ll help, and get their feedback.